Apple Data Center Will Be Totally Green by 2013

Grading work continues at the site of the solar farm Apple is building in Maiden, North Carolina, Tuesday, April 2, 2012. Apple announced that it plans to build the nations biggest non-utility fuel cell facility on the site. Photograph by Jeff Willhelm/Charlotte Observer/MCT/Zuma Press

May 17 (Bloomberg) -- Apple Inc., targeted by Greenpeace
International over its energy consumption, said its 500,000-square-foot data center in Maiden, North Carolina, will be
powered entirely by renewable sources by the end of the year.

The move, announced today on Apple’s website, follows
protests at the company’s headquarters in Cupertino, California,
and elsewhere. Greenpeace demonstrators criticized the world’s
largest technology company for using too much coal.

None of three Apple’s data centers -- including an existing
facility in Newark, California, and one being built in
Prineville, Oregon -- will use power produced by coal, Chief
Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer said in an interview.

“We are leading the industry,” he said. “All three of
our data centers will be coal free, which is an industry first
for anybody of our size.”

Apple reiterated its plan to generate 60 percent of the
Maiden facility’s power itself, through a large deployment of
fuel cells at the site and a 100-acre solar farm located across
the street. Fuel cells are able to turn biogases, which can be
taken from sources such as landfills, into electricity.

The company provided additional detail today, saying it is
finishing the purchase of a 150-acre site, two miles away. Once
these projects are completed, Apple will generate 124 million
kilowatt-hours of power a year, enough to power 10,874 homes.

Renewable Energy

The remaining 40 percent of power needed at the Maiden data
center will come from providers of renewable energy in the
region, Oppenheimer said.

Apple is installing solar panels from San Jose, California-based SunPower Corp. at the 100-acre site, he said. It is using
fuel cells from Bloom Energy Corp., a closely held company based
in Sunnyvale, California.

While Apple’s California data center doesn’t generate power
on-site, it will use only renewable sources by February 2013, he
said. The Oregon facility will open using only renewable energy,
Oppenheimer said.

Greenpeace in a report last month singled out Apple,
Amazon.com Inc. and Twitter Inc. for not using enough clean
energy. The report gave better grades to Google Inc., Yahoo!
Inc. and Facebook Inc. -- all companies that have facilities
powered in part by renewable sources such as water and wind,
according to Greenpeace.

Oppenheimer declined to say whether the changes were a
response to the Greenpeace report or protests. He stressed that
Apple’s plans have been in place since last year.

“Apple’s announcement today is a great sign that Apple is
taking seriously the hundreds of thousands of its customers who
have asked for an iCloud powered by clean energy, not dirty
coal,” Gary Cook, an analyst at Greenpeace International, said
in a statement.

Apple runs its iCloud online synchronization service, among
other activities, from the Maiden facility.